


The New Teacher

by AnnieVH, MaddieBonanaFana



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, School, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 07:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9646436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieVH/pseuds/AnnieVH, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieBonanaFana/pseuds/MaddieBonanaFana
Summary: Rumpelstiltskin sacrifices his magic to bring Neal back from the dead and to wake Belle up but, as grateful as they both were, they still need time for themselves to figure things out. Knowing a lonely and powerless Rumpelstiltskin is a powder keg waiting to explode, the Charmings decide that helping him adapt into the world will be much less of a headache than waiting for the next crisis, and Mary Margaret thinks she's found the perfect way to help: by making him a teacher.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: based on this (http://annievh.tumblr.com/post/153706919542/free-prompt-rumple-becomes-a-teacher-and-the) prompt that Maddie was brave enough to tackle first, and then gave me the result to work with. Takes place after season 5, but without the events of the finale.

David thought it was a terrible idea. Emma went as far as to say there'd be a long line of angry parents at their door. Even Henry, who accepted most things with no more than a shrug, seemed to have reservations. Regina was more supportive – if one can call laughing so hard she fell out of her chair supportive – but even she admitted that mixing the newly depowered Dark One with a group of children wasn't exactly a clever idea.

Mary Margaret defended it fiercely, claiming, “If you want to sit and watch that powder keg explode, you're more than welcome to, but I'd rather not wait around to see what Gold is capable of when he's got nothing to lose.”

No one could argue with that.

She approached him at Granny's the following morning with her proposal, thinking he wouldn't make a scene in public.

“Are you out of your mind, dearie?” he asked, smirking as if her idea was about the most absurd thing he'd heard all day.

Behind her, David muttered, “Told you...”

“What makes you think I want to stand on my feet all day, teaching a group of little brats?”

“You won't have to stand on your feet all day,” she said, before Gold could grab the attention of everyone in Granny's. She'd much rather not having to deal with parents protesting her decision before she absolutely had to. “We have chairs in the classroom for a reason. And the children are angels, trust me.”

Gold scoffed, "You say that because they bribe you with apples so you'll give them good marks."

Mary Margaret almost looked offended. "I don't allow them to give me apples." Then, she looked down at her feet. _"Occasionally_ they do give me a pear..."

"Ha! I stand corrected. Now run along.” He waved a hand a the both of them, shooing them away. “My order should be here soon and I'm not sticking around any longer for this pointless conversation."

David tapped her on the shoulder so they could leave – and perhaps start preparing for the next great crisis – but Mary Margaret was stubborn.

"How's Neal?" she asked.

Gold looked right back at her before finally saying, "He's fine. Still on bed rest. He should be released sometime this week. I just thought I'd pick up his favorite since he's been confined to hospital food since he got back."

"Well that's very nice of you to do, I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

He grumbled, “Hm-hm,” in response. Mary Margaret knew that his son was a sensitive topic. Despite the fact that his father had given up his powers to bring him back to life, learning of the many mistakes he'd made since Neal's death hadn't done wonders for their relationship and things were shaky at best. On a good day, father and son managed to get through a couple of hours without a fight erupting. From what Henry had told her, there weren't a lot of good days.

Things would have been much easier, and perhaps safer for Storybrooke, if Belle were still by his side, but his wife had moved back into the apartment above the library, claiming that she needed time to think things through. Gossip on the topic was unreliable, with some people saying she was just as heartbroken as Gold was, and some saying she was ready to sign the divorce papers (though that was mostly her father).

"You know, I ran by this idea by Neal and Belle,” she said, immediately capturing his attention. “They both seemed to think it would be really good for you."

That seemed to give him pause and Mary Margaret smiled. Her trick card seemed to have worked.

Gold said, “You shouldn't bother my son with your wild ideas when he's still recovering.”

"For your information, I'd taken Henry with Emma over to see him and he was the one who brought you up first. Said something about you needing something productive to do, and I mentioned there was a teaching position open. He thought it was a great idea."

Neal's exact words had been, “Yes, I suppose that's a step up from evil dark sorcerer, as long as he doesn't make the children cry,” his face dubious and his words lacking conviction.

Gold said nothing, just drummed his fingers on the top of his cane to fill the silence between them.

Before he was forced to say anything, Granny arrived with his order. A bacon cheese burger with no mayo, curly fries, and a soda. Bae's favorite, according to Henry. He moved to grab the food and said to Mary Margaret, "Thank you for the offer, Mrs. Nolan, but I have other more important things to attend to."

"Just think about it please, I really think you'd be great for this position," she pleaded one last time. “I mean, the students can't be worse than Regina, can they?”

Gold's response was to briskly walk past her, making David jump out of his way as he headed out the door.

“Bringing Neal up was a low blow,” her husband said, though he spoke more with respect than admonishment.

“They _did_ think it was a... not-horrible idea,” she said. “Besides, school is back in a week. I'm getting desperate.”

 

 

 

Mary Margaret practically pulled him down the hallway, a hand on his arm no matter how many times Gold tried to shake it off. She was probably afraid he might change his mind and run away before class started. Not that he wasn't considering exactly that. The school was already full of children, chatting merrily in front of their lockers, the sight of them making him feel uncomfortable.

Teaching was not unfamiliar territory, and he found children to be less revolting than grownups. But there were so many. He'd much rather take a sorceress into the woods and scare her powers into blooming than staring at row after row of uniformed children while reciting potion ingredients to them.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Gold muttered, as they entered the classroom.

"Ah! I can't believe it either, I'm so excited for you!" Mary Margaret exclaimed. Before he had the chance to protest, she took out her cellphone and snapped a picture of him standing by his desk. “Oh, no, you didn't smile. Let's try this again. We need to document your first day in class!”

"One more photo and you'll have to call in a last minute sub," he threatened.

"Right, sorry."

Rumple let out a nervous breath and set down the papers Mary Margaret had handed him on the desk. “When will the little hooligans be arriving?"

"In about 15 minutes the bell will ring and they'll be going to their respective classes. Right now they are in the cafeteria having breakfast. Your first class will come in for an hour-"

Rumple stopped her. "Wait, first class? How many classes are there?"

“There will be four classes today. Three before lunch, and one after. The students have another two periods, but you'll be free to leave after that.”

“You teach the same subject all day to four different groups of annoying children? How do you manage your sanity?” he asked, bewildered.

Mary Margaret chuckled, "It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. People don't realize how hard it is to be a teacher. Don't worry, this is their first day back so you'll only be going over the syllabus."

"The what?"

"The syllabus.” Mary Margaret indicated the thick stack of papers she had given him. “That one. It has information on the classroom and what the expectations are. You're supposed to make it yourself but you agreed to this at the last minute so I had to make one for you. There's a copy for everybody in the class.”

Gold examined one syllabus, lifting the first of what seemed to be about ten pages with the tip of his fingers.

“Why can't they read this at home? Seems like a waste of my time.”

"These kids haven't been in school for a long time, it's best to let them get used to the classroom setting again before jumping straight into lectures."

Gold twisted his nose at that. He didn't see the benefit of babying the students and holding them in a classroom the entire day if nothing productive would come of it. But since he'd had no time to prepare his own lectures, he didn't complain. Victor, who'd been Mary Margaret's second choice, had already planned an agenda for the first week and, looking at the notes he'd been kind enough to hand over, Gold could see it was straightforward enough. Still, this was going to take more effort than he first imagined.

"Well, I need to get back to my own classroom now," Mary Margaret said. "Good luck on your first day. Oh! Here!”

She produced a bright, red apple from her purse.

“Regina wanted me to give it to you.”

He stared at her.

Mary Margaret blinked slowly at him, processing the look in his eyes, and shoved the apple back in her purse.

“But given that I need the teachers to be alert, and not cursed, on their first day...”

“That would be best, yes.”

“I'll save you a seat at lunchtime. Then you can tell me all about your first day.”

Gold cringed at the thought of being surrounded by clones of Mary Margaret Blanchard – people whose lives he might have indirectly, or rather directly, ruined in the Enchanted Forest. Giving them the chance to witness his downfall as he sat at a small table, eating a packaged lunch, trying to make small talk... he shivered. He hadn't come to school to make friends or improve his relationship with the rest of Storybrooke's fake royalty. All he wanted was to prove to Neal and Belle that he was capable of change so that they'd allow him back into their lives.

As soon as the lunch bell rang, he'd be out of there. But right now, he still had over three hours to go and his students were on their way.

Sure enough, a horde of middle schoolers pushed their way through the door. Gold scanned each one of them through narrow eyes, though he doubted he'd recognize any faces. Parents weren't exactly keen on letting children interact with him; more often than not, they'd grab them by the hand and turn the other way if they saw him coming down the street. For the most part, Gold preferred it that way, but now he wished he had at least some knowledge of these children. Whereas their parents would have stared at him in fear, his students only seemed to look at him with curiosity, no matter how threatening he tried to look.

He counted thirteen kids, utterly forgetful and hard to tell apart in their uniforms. Soon, they were all seated, filling the room with sounds of talking and zippers being opened as they brought out binders and notebooks. He could hear them whispering, asking, “Is that Mr. Gold?” and “Where's Mr. Yensid?” but once the final morning bell rang, they all fell silent and turned to face him. Gold doubted they were always this quiet this fast and imagined that their curiosity played a part in their compliance, but he'd take advantage of that.

He got up, folded his hands over his cane, and wished them, "Good morning,” in a dry and not at all welcoming voice.

The students replied in unison, “Good morning, Mr. Gold,” in a practiced, singing tone that caught him by surprise. He wondered if Mary Margaret had indoctrinated the children from an early age to behave like a hive mind of politeness.

He cleared his throat. “I'm sure you had a nice, what, two year vacation?”

The children looked around at each other.

“It was more like...” a girl with hair so blonde it was almost white tried to explain, “like a series of sudden vacations. You know... every time someone tried to blow up town. Mrs. Nolan is hoping for a full year this time, so...”

She showed him her crossed fingers, but didn't seem to be holding her breath. Gold rolled his eyes. Over thirty years in Storybrooke, and the Charmings still had trouble running a real school.

“Wasn't that your fault?”

“What?” Gold asked, head snapping to the boy who had spoken.

“Like... didn't you try to, like, blow up the town? That's what my dad said.”

The children looked at him, awaiting an answer.

Gold gaped back at them. “That wasn't, I wasn't- we're doing the syllabus today. Get a pen.”

“But Mr. Gold-”

“Now!”

There were some groans of frustration, but at least the kids did as they were told.

“Alright, the syllabus,” he said, picking the stack of papers up, “these are just some guidelines that the school expects you to-” and then he spotted a hand up in the air. “What? And this better be a relevant question.”

“Uhn, I guess it is,” said the freckled boy sitting near the wall. “What happened to Mr. Yensid?”

“He's not here anymore. As I was saying-”

"Did he get fired?" asked a girl near the window.

"I don't believe-"

"Did he die?" asked another girl, this one sitting next to the blonde girl, who immediately gasped.

“No! Why does it matter?” Gold snapped, loud enough to make speculation stop. He froze. Right. No yelling at the children, Mary Margaret had been very adamant about that.

“He was just so old, I think that's possible,” the girl explained, nonchalantly.

“He's not dead. He was asked to retired, or so Mrs. Nolan has told me,” Gold answered. “There was a... broom incident. I don't know. Ask her- Hands down!” he growled at the freckled boy, who was raising his hand to speak again. “No more questions until we've covered the syllabus. I need someone to pass these out, so please-”

"I'll do it!" said the blonde girl who was sitting right in front of his desk. She practically jumped out of her chair and began passing out the packets quickly and efficiently, then returning to her chair and clasping her hands together, looking at him like she expected a compliment.

“Right... thank you, Miss...”

Gold paused, realizing that he'd forgotten to take roll. Lord, being a teacher was so fastidious.

He picked the list of names that had been given to him and read it over. He knew almost every one in Storybrooke and it was likely that he had a history with at least some of these children's parents, but the names in front of him meant nothing, which was a good thing. This was hard enough as it was, without having to add old grudges to the mixture. Once he finished ticking off names, he put the roll call sheet in the box outside, as instructed.

 _See_ , he thought, _I can follow the rules, too._

“Very well, if everybody's got the syllabus, then we're going to read it together. If you can turn to page...” Rumple flipped it open and glanced at the dreadfully long thing – and then did a double take. Mary Margaret had put smiley faces, cutesy squiggly lines under important passages, and little reminders on the margins, such as, “Remember, children, school is supposed to be fun!”

He pilfered through the pages, scanning each horrible candy coated paragraph to look for the important things. The silence was becoming tense as the children waited for him to start.

“This is... rather _cute_ , Mr. Gold,” said the freckled boy, with a little smirk, and Gold had to control himself not to give that kid detention on the spot. The other students did their best not to laugh, but he could hear a little snickering in the back.

“Fine, you know what, we're just going to-” he ripped off the first four pages and tossed them in the garbage. “This is all that really matters, 'classroom expectations and grading scale'," he read. “ _You are expected to arrive on time and with all your needed materials. Homework is to be done the night before and turned in at the start of class. There is to be no disrupting of the class, and respect is to be given to both your peers and your instructor_."

A boy with jet black hair in the back, whose name he believed to be Ryder, raised his hand.

"Yes?" Gold asked, dreading what was to come.

But Flynn just asked, "What do we need for this class?" and Gold was relieved to finally get a relevant question.

He shrugged. “Paper and a pencil should be fine. Whatever else helps you stay organized.”

"What about a textbook?" someone called out.

“What for?”

They stared, befuddled.

“To read and learn, Mr. Gold, of course,” said the blonde girl, whose name was White, which was quite fitting of her pale figure. “If you could give us a book, that would make studying much easier. Wouldn't it?”

She looked around to seek the support of her peers. No one seemed very keen on it, though.

Gold didn't even notice that he was beginning to grin. “ _A_ book? You want to learn chemistry from _a_ book?”

“Well... Mr. Yensid always gave us a book.”

“Sounds like Yensid,” he sighed. “Well, I'm not Mr. Yensid, so you're not going to need a textbook.”

The children erupted with shouts of joy and sighs of relief. Miss White, however, looked distressed.

“But Mr. Gold!” she asked, hinging on desperation. “How are we to deepen our studies if you don't-”

“Oh my god, Gwyn, will you give it a rest?” Ryder snapped, exasperated. “It's the _first day_!”

“Now, now, there's nothing wrong with wanting to learn,” Gold said. “I'm confident I don't need an oversized, outdated book to teach this course. But we _will_ have the occasional reading, so you better not get complacent.”

Ryder seemed disappointed, but White perked up at that.

“Reading is important, and the art of making potions is delicate and demands dedication.”

"This isn't magic Mr. Gold," Miss White said. “It's, like, science.”

This time, Gold chuckled, truly amused by their naivete. “Yes, well, Miss White, you'll learn that potions are much closer to chemistry than to magic.”

"You don't have to call me that Mr. Gold," she said in return. "You can just call me Gwyneth. Or Gwyn."

Gold studied the young girl for a moment. There was definitely something familiar about her, but he couldn't put his finger on it.

“I can count the people I call by their first name on my hand, Miss White, and it's not something I do often.”

“What is _your_ first name?” asked Mr. Candem, the freckled boy.

“You don't need to know it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you're not going to use it. Now-”

"Are you gonna teach us how to make potions?" Someone asked excitedly.

“Of course not,” Gold scoffed. “I'd be fired immediately and it takes more than a semester to master the art of potions. Now on to the-”

“But we can play with the burny thingy, right?”

Gold stared at him. “The _what_ , Mr. Candem?”

“The burny thingy.”

“What, in the name of hell, is the _burny thingy_?”

White raised her hand and explained, looking as pained as he was, “He means the Bunsen burner.”

“Good god,” he sighed, rubbing his eyes and feeling exhausted already. “Did Yensid teach you _nothing_?”

“He wouldn't let us play with it!” Candem protested.

Gold gaped at him. “They're not for playing!”

“But we couldn't use them for sciency stuff either!”

Ryder said, “Yeah, he said we would ruin the equipment, or whatever. We were supposed to watch and take notes and-”

“Not – touch – anything!” the children recited in a single voice, and then dissolved in giggles.

Gold covered his mouth so they wouldn't see him smile.

“I'll tell you what,” he said. “If you manage not to blow things up, and you use the proper name of everything, and if Mr. Candem stops adding an unnecessary Y to the end of every word... then I'll consider it.”

Ryder and Candem high-fived and even White looked a little perkier at the chance of doing real experiments.

“Settle down,” he said, softer than before. The children went quiet immediately. He went back to reading the syllabus. “Regarding your grading scale. Tests will be worth 30% of your grade, quizzes will be 15%, homework-" he paused. "No, on second thought, no homework. Scratch that out."

“Wait, wait, wait,” Ryder said. “There's no textbook, we get to use the lab, _and_ we have no homework?”

“I'm not wasting my time grading that every day.”

“Dude! Don't _ever_ retire!”

Gold frowned. “ _Dude_?”

Baker, a chubby girl who was sitting right behind him, jumped forward to cover his mouth.

“He means no disrespect, Mr. Gold. He'll shut up for the rest of class.”

“A very good idea. And yes, I won't give you homework, but that means I'll have to tweak some of these numbers around, so I still expect you to do your best, is that understood?”

“Yes, Mr. Gold," they all replied happily in unison.

“I'll have an updated version of this for you all tomorrow. _Without_ the stickers,” he said, making them laugh. Then, he took a look at the clock. There was still a considerate amount of time left but he had no lesson planned for them. "Well," he started, "we still have a lot of time left. Does anyone have questions?"

To his surprise, many hands went up.

"Uh, you," he pointed in the back, "Mr. Robinson."

"You can just call me Scotty," said the boy. "Anyways, is our final exam going to be hard?"

Rumple blinked. "I haven't even planned what we're doing tomorrow Mr. Robinson, how can you expect me to answer _that_?”

Robinson shrugged.

“If you do well in this class, I'm sure you will have no trouble with the exam." He looked up to see more hands. "Yes, Miss Lockie?" He pointed to a girl next to White.

"If you're our teacher now, who's going to work at the pawnshop?" Lockie asked.

“I will,” he replied. “It'll be open every afternoon and weekends, not that it ever gets much business.” He pointed at a pimpled boy. “Mr. Woodsman?”

"Are you gonna make us memorize the periodic table? I heard Mr. Yensid made everybody do that," he asked with a look of nervousness.

"The what?"

The children pointed behind him, and Rumple turned to see a large periodic table tacked beside the whiteboard.

"Oh my," he said quietly. "Oh... This is... this is all sorts of wrong!"

"What's wrong about it Mr. Gold?" White asked, with a quizzical look.

"It doesn't account for fairy dust, dragon blood, moonlight- what a bunch of science mumbo jumbo!" he exclaimed, tearing it from the wall.

"But I told you Mr. Gold," White started, "this is chemistry, not magic class."

“Yes, and I've already explained, Miss White, that this isn't about magic. This is about precision. Considering the land you all came from, wouldn't it be more useful to learn beyond this nonsense?”

They looked at each other.

“I suppose...” White granted.

“Good!” He crinkled the periodic table to a ball and threw it in the garbage. “I'll have an amended periodic table tomorrow.”

Ryedr raised his hand, hesitantly. “Uhn, Mr. Gold?”

“Mr. Ryder, if you're going to ask about homework again, I swear-”

“No, like, what does moonlight do?”

“What?”

“Because moonlight is not, like, a real thing. It's... moonlight. How can I put it in a flask?”

“Oh!” he said, surprised to hear an actual real question. “You don't really put it in a flask, Mr. Ryder. You prepare potions underneath it.”

“So then it'd be more like fire,” White said. “Fire is not an element on the periodic table.”

He looked at her, surprised. “That is... a rather clever observation, Miss White.”

That prompted a long discussion on the properties of magic and why fire wasn't in the periodic table, but moonlight was supposed to be. The children were eating up every detail and, for the first time, Gold felt himself relaxing as though his talents and knowledge were no longer wasting away in the back of his mind.

Besides, through conversation he got the chance to truly analyze the children and see which ones would give him trouble. Ryder was bound to be the most challenging, though Robinson was the first one to give up the discussion and look at his cellphone – which was immediately confiscated. Baker tended to ask the off topic questions, but at least she did so with passion and interest.

There was no doubt in his mind that Gwyneth White would be his best student, though. She was already ahead of her class when it came to regular science and she was quick to make obvious connections while her peers struggled to follow up.

He'd seen that sharp intellect in another young woman, a long time ago. One who had similar long, blonde hair... the same brown eyes...

“Eleanor White,” he said, making the girl stop the complicated inference she was trying to make.

“Pardon me?”

"You're Gwyneth White. Your parents are Eleanor and Baron White. The White King and Queen who ruled half a chessboard in Wonderland," he stated.

Gwynn smiled, proud of her royalty. “I am, yes.”

"I turned them into chess pieces when they tried to cut me out of a deal," Rumple continued.

Whit's smile faded. “Wait, that was you?”

Ryder hissed his teeth. “Dude... not cool.”

“Yes...” he granted. “Not particularly cool. But I suppose we're about even now, since my dark curse turned them human again. Send my apologies to them. I can tell they've raised a bright young lady.”

“Oh!” White smiled again, shock quickly turning to flattery. “Thank you, Mr. Gold. I suppose.”

With that, the bell rang and his firs class was officially over. Once again, the sound of chatter and zippers filled the room as his students left, allowing him to take a deep breath. This wasn't... as unpleasant as he thought it would be. If his next classes went as well as the first, then perhaps he could bear to do this after all, at least for a few months.

He was wondering how exactly to tell Mary Margaret class had gone well enough without making her exceedingly excited about it when he felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and his heart leaped when he saw Bae's name on the screen.

His message was short: _Did they make you cry?_

Gold smiled and typed back. _Not yet, but I still have two more classes to go._

The answer came just as the students were beginning to settle down: _Good luck, then. Tell me all about it when you're done._

Gold sighed. He hadn't expected Neal to send him anything, given the state of their relationship, but it seemed that Mary Margaret wasn't lying about him thinking it was a good idea. Perhaps this was the opening he'd been waiting for. Quickly, he sent back another reply, promising to stop by later to tell him of his misadventures.

“Good morning, everyone,” he said, in a much better mood than he'd been when the day started. “I'm Mr. Gold and I'll be your chemistry teacher from now on. And before anyone asks, Mr. Yensid retired and, more to the point, he was a colossal idiot.”

 

 

 

Before he knew it, lunchtime arrived and the bell announced the end of his final class. Overall, Gold would classify his first day as a teacher as a rather successful enterprise. The children had seemed rather excited at the thought of learning about potions alongside regular chemistry, and his promise to actually allow them to use the equipment in the lab was met with cheers. As long as he kept a close eye on his little alchemists, there shouldn't be a problem.

As expected, Gwyneth White hadn't been the only person who's family he'd had a history with, and not all students had been as forgiving as she had. A girl had left the classroom in tears upon learning that her great-grandmother had been turned into a teapot, and he knew there'd be hell to pay with Mary Margaret for that. Luckily, teenagers were shallow enough that most kids could be won over with the promise of no homework.

“Mr. Gold,” a girl named La Bouff told him, upon finding out her family fortune had been lost to a shady deal orchestrated by the Dark One, “as long as I don't have to waste my time memorizing the periodic table, you can cheat my daddy out of as many cows as you want.”

“How very disloyal, Miss La Bouff,” Gold said, not a hint of disapproval in his voice.

La Bouff shrugged. “I'm a vegetarian.”

A certain backlash was to be expected, Gold had no illusions that the kids' parents would simply accept his new position, or even his new ideas on how to run a classroom, without lining up in front of Mary Margaret's office to protest. But that was her problem to deal with. His job description was to show up every morning and make sure kids learned chemistry.

Apparently, that much he could do.

As the final class left, Gold stayed behind to pack his things, which he did as fast as he could, dreading that Mary Margaret might show up at any moment to whisk him away to the cafeteria. When the knock on the door happened, he sighed.

“I'm not hungry, dearie. Go bother someone else.”

“Bad day at school?”

Gold looked up. The voice on the other side of the door was most definitely not Mary Margaret's. He jumped to his feet.

“Belle! Come in, please.”

She pushed the door open and peeked inside. “Hi. May I-”

“Yes, please. I'm not busy with anything.” He smiled at her as she walked in. “It's good to see you.”

“You too. You don't look too frazzled.”

“It... wasn't as bad as you might think.”

Belle nodded with a little smile on her lips.

"I didn't expect to see you here," he said.

“I just... wanted to swing by and see how our first day went. I thought you might appreciate this.”

She took the purse from her shoulder and looked inside. Her hand disappeared in the bag and moved things around, making them cling-clang, until she finally retrieved a little box.

“What is that?” he asked, taking the box from her hand.

“An apple. Well, apple tea.”

“Ah... I was beginning to think that was but a myth.”

“It's more symbolic than anything. I heard it's disgusting and I wouldn't drink it.”

She laughed and he followed suit, but soon it died on their lips and they were left with nothing to fill the silence for a moment. Gold clutched the box in his hand. Disgusting or not, it felt precious to him.

Belle was the first to speak. “I'm really glad you took this opportunity. I think it's perfect for you."

"Well, I wouldn't say perfect, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy today."

“I knew you would. You just have to stop being so stubborn.”

“I think I'm getting better at it.” He paused. Then, “I was going to stop by the hospital to see Bae. He wanted to know how the day went. If you'd like to hear about it, you're more than welcome to join me.”

Belle opened her mouth but then closed it quickly, without saying a word.

"If you're not ready I underst-"

"No," she interrupted. "No. I would love to come and hear about your day. I think...”Her delicate hands folded over her belly, still flat and with a good seven months to go before they had to deal with that particular complication. “I think we're gonna have to make this work, so...”

Rumple nodded. “Lunch and a conversation seems like a proper place to start.”

“Yes.”

“Just let me get my planners and my syllabus.”

Belle laughed. "Look at you, talking about planners and syllabus. It's day one and you already sound like a natural."

"If being a natural means turning into Mary Margaret, I'm resigning tomorrow," he replied, packing the rest of his things. “And by the way, if you spot her coming our way, we might have to run.”

 

 

 


End file.
